Former Transport and Infrastructural Development Minister
Dr Joram Gumbo has denied any wrongdoing in corporate governance malpractices
that dogged the Zimbabwe National Road Administration during his tenure.
The malpractices range from alleged abuse of money and
flouting of corporate governance tenets. Dr Gumbo was recently reassigned to the Ministry of Energy
and Power Development. Documents reveal that Dr Gumbo
directly withdrew allowances from Zinara.
On corporate governance malpractices that border on a clear
case of conflict of interest, Dr Gumbo’s company JMCD won a lucrative tender to
supply clothing material to Zinara.
Further, on some occasions Dr Gumbo was paid money for
other engagements by Zinara, which had nothing to do with road development. In
an interview with The Herald, Dr Gumbo said there was nothing wrong with the
dealings.
He told The Herald that his company won the tender
competitively and the same company was also supplying other Government
departments.
Asked if there was no conflict of interest in having his
company supplying material to a line state enterprise under his ministry, Dr
Gumbo said: “I have a company called JMCD. It is our company and the directors
are myself and my wife. It is a sewing company. It is supplying the army,
Zanu-PF, the Ministry of Health (and Child Care) and many other companies. It
won these tenders. It has got nothing to do with me as an individual.
“I cannot go and stop a company and say you can’t tender.
It is not possible and the fact that I am working and when the company supplies
the army and the Ministry of Health it is okay, but when they supply Zinara
because they have won a tender competitively like everybody else then it
becomes a crime. I do not understand it. When they won their tender I was not
even involved, but the company is there and there is nothing to hide about it.
It is connected with Nemchem and was supplying a lot of things in Government.
We are doing a lot of cleaning and it did not start now. That has always been
happening.”
One of the Zinara receipts in possession of The Herald
subtitled: Application for advances and authority travel, Dr Gumbo on April 12,
2018, signed for an allowance of US$1 295.
“I Honourable Dr JM Gumbo am applying for $1 295 for the
following purposes: Trips on official business during the period April 12 to
April 16, 2018.”
The purpose of the allowances according to the receipt was
for the minister to go on a continuous assessment of roads in the Midlands
Province.
Asked how he was directly accessing allowances from Zinara
instead of the Department of Roads in his ministry, Dr Gumbo said everything to
do with roads Zinara had to pay.
He said the ministry only supplies fuel coupons for 650
litres for such engagements.
“When you go out as a minister you apply for assistance
because you do not have the money for hotels and all your staff so there is
nothing wrong,” he said.
“Zinara is for roads. From the ministry you are only given
650 (litres) coupons, but because you are going out you do not go alone. You go
with a team to visit the roads. So if you are going to visit all the roads in
the Midlands you get the funding from them. Zinara is for roads so they will
assist you to go out and do work that we are supposed to do.
“Every time you saw me in Nkayi, Chipinge, in Mashonaland
Central or anywhere else, accommodation, food and all the other expenses were
being paid for by Zinara.”
In another case, Zinara paid for $4 380 for Dr Gumbo’s
travel expenses to Malaysia on Zim Airways business. Asked why Zinara was
paying his costs that had nothing to do with road development Dr Gumbo said it
was official Government business.
“What happened when we started this thing about Zim Airways,
we were going on trips to Malaysia,” he said.
“The point was that Zim Airways did not have money. You
could not then get money from Air Zimbabwe because they were strained and they
could not pay because it was now like two separate accounts or entities — Air
Zimbabwe on its own, Zim Airways on its own.
“But then how do you go to Malaysia and do Government
business, we needed money to go there. What we then did at the ministry was
then to say let’s look at a parastatal that can fund the trip so that’s is how
we did it. Zinara was the only place where we could get money, but still it was
Government business.”
Zim Airways is yet to operate and recent reports suggested
the plane was flown back to Malaysia for maintenance without making a single
commercial business trip. Herald
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